Mark Salling Wiki, Biography
Mark Salling, an American singer and actor best known for playing Puck on the popular Fox TV series Glee, has died at the age of 35, weeks before going to prison on two counts of child pornography. He was found dead during a welfare check after a family member reported him missing the same day.
The actor’s body was found hanging from a tree in the San Fernando Valley near his home in Sunland, California, in January 2018. According to USA Today, the coroner’s spokesman confirmed that Salling’s “cause of death was suffocation.” by hanging, suicide”.
Investigation Discovery is set to premiere The Price of Glee, an upcoming three-part documentary series that will chronicle the many controversies and deaths that have overshadowed the huge success of the hit musical comedy over the years. The docuseries premieres this Monday, January 16, 2023 at 9 p.m. m. ET.
Glee actor Mark Salling’s cause of death was asphyxiation
The Los Angeles coroner’s office determined that Mark Salling, the former Glee actor who was discovered dead on January 30, 2018, committed suicide after hanging himself.
Salling, 35, was found in the Los Angeles River bed in an isolated part of Big Tujunga Canyon, a few miles from his residence in the Sunland-Tujunga community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. He was due to be sentenced on charges of possession of child pornography in March of that year.
The official cause and manner of death were determined by an autopsy, despite the original assessment by police and the coroner’s office that Salling died by suicide. His attorney verified the actor’s death after he was discovered dead following a “welfare check” at 8:50 am.
Mark Salling was scheduled to be sentenced after pleading guilty to child pornography charges
Mark Salling was arrested in December 2015 after the LAPD’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at his residence. It was after this that he was charged with receiving and possessing child pornography in a federal indictment filed in May 2016.
Before his death, Salling accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors, in which he confessed to possessing pornographic images of pre-adolescent children. He was scheduled to be sentenced as a penalty. The reports revealed that Salling’s computer and a USB stick contained more than 50,000 images of child pornography.
The prosecution decided to seek a jail term of four to seven years for the actor. In addition, he would have had to comply with housing restrictions, pay restitution, and register as a sex offender.
Salling became the second Glee actor to die tragically after the Cory Monteith overdose incident in July 2013. The actor was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the age of 31. Reports indicated that he died of a fatal combination of heroin and alcohol.
Naya Rivera later became the third Glee star to die after accidentally drowning in a California lake in 2020.
Tune in to ID’s The Price of Glee this Monday, January 16, to learn more about the case involving Mark Salling and other deceased Glee actors.